St. Joseph beats Niles in overtime

March 08, 2006|BOB OPPENHEIM Tribune Staff Writer

ST. JOSEPH -- The St. Joseph boys basketball team survived regulation and then dominated in overtime Tuesday to post a 61-48 win over Niles in the quarterfinals of the St. Joseph Class B District. The 15-6 Bears advance to play Dowagiac (4-16) at 7 p.m. Thursday in a district semifinal game. Coloma (9-11) and Lakeshore (13-8) meet in the other semifinal tonight at 7 p.m. For the first time this year St. Joseph coach Gregg Schaffer could smile after playing Niles. The Vikings swept the Bears (67-66 and 51-44) during the regular season. "I'm just extremely proud of our toughness and composure all night long," said Schaffer, who is hoping to lead the Bears to their second straight district title. "I can't say enough about Niles and the type of game they played. It was two evenly matched teams that competed hard. I'm just thankful that we found a way to pull it out." Niles had its chances at the end of regulation to beat St. Joseph again. After Brad Guinane scored for the Bears to tie the game at 46 with 37 seconds left in regulation, Niles set up for the game-winning basket and called a timeout with :13.9 remaining. After the timeout, four players touched the ball before Brandon Thomas got the ball in the paint. Thomas attempted a shot with three seconds left that was blocked by St. Joseph's David Clore. The ball went out of bounds, giving Niles one more chance to win the game with :01.8 left. St. Joseph then called a timeout. Underneath the Niles basket, Nate Parks lofted a ball to Ben Hansen whose shot fell well short of the rim, sending the game into overtime. "I think our guys competed to the very last second of regulation," Schaffer said. "Without that mindset and intensity we wouldn't have gotten the game into overtime." Niles coach Denny Parks felt his team was in great position to win the game in regulation. "We had our chance," said Parks, whose team finishes at 12-9. "We can't cry about anything. We had the last couple of shots in regulation that could have won it for us." St. Joseph scored the first seven points and last eight points of overtime. The Bears went 3-of-5 from the field and 8-of-10 from the free throw line over the final four minutes. "I thought we executed extremely well in overtime," Schaffer said. Niles struggled in overtime, going 1-of-8 from the field and missing two front ends of one-and-one opportunities at the free throw line. "We didn't execute very well in overtime," Parks said. Clore scored 18 points -- seven in overtime -- to lead St. Joseph. Jared Knuth added 15 points, while Guinane had 11, including five in overtime. Hansen came off the bench to lead Niles with 13 points. St. Joseph did a great job defensively on the Vikings top two scorers -- Thomas and Nick Etzcorn. Thomas, who came in averaging almost 18 points a game, was held to 12 points, while Etzcorn finished with a hard-earned eight points, five below his season average. Clore guarded Etzcorn in the second half, while Steven Dahn defended Etzcorn in the first half and Thomas in the second half. St. Joseph, which jumped out to a 6-0 lead, led most of the game. The Bears owned an eight-point lead three times in the game with that last advantage coming at 44-36 with 5:23 left in the game. "I thought St. Joseph got to play in its comfort zone the whole night," Parks said. "They always seemed to have a six- or eight-point lead." Niles went on a 10-0 run to take a 46-44 lead with 1:20 to play. The Vikings had a chance to increase that lead with 51 seconds left but failed to take advantage. Niles' Danny Rodts missed the front end of a one-and-one and Clore grabbed the rebound for St. Joseph.